Friday 10 August 2007

Place fish on plate eat fish!

Rick Stein: God of Food.
A while ago I wrote about not liking Gordon Ramsay mainly because he doesn’t seem to like food. So it’s good to have Rick Stein back touring the Med showing Mr grumpled chin how it’s done.
A food programme about food who knew. Last night we met a Sardinia sausage called figatellu which sounded delish. Tonight a sort of medieval pressure cooked wild boar and tatty stew which also looked excellent. Rick did slip up a bit whilst having some suckling pig he thought we might not like the ember cooked stuffed pigs intestine, (which looked great) er Rick isn’t that just sausage?

It helps that Rick is a grown up, who has read something more than the latest Aston Martin catalogue. Tonight he was in Corsica and Sicily and showed more good food and simple recipes. Smoke eel, a lemon granita that looked gorgeous, even some veggie fare that looked great.

The most telling comparison with Ramsay is that Rick bumped into someone who had bumped into his old mate Mathew Fort (I do think it was an accident) who was writing a book in Sicily. These 2 old friends met up and enthused about food for a five minutes mid show. Gordo would never have a better chef than him on his programme, but Rick regularly lauds other chefs and writers. T’old Gordon’s idea of a special guest is Victoria Beckham, a women who doesn’t eat.
QED.

Ps. why is the bbc “ home of 2 million repeats of 2 pints of cocking lager” chucking away Rick’s series by cobbling together 2 episodes clearly made as half hour shows? Presumably they need to free up the schedules for more of their in-depth animal shows, sorry feature length adverts for a randy toffs private visitor's attraction sorry Animal “look the monkeys got a poorly paw sodding” Park.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's all a bit Judith Chalmers for me, although I wouldn't object to seeing a JC revival.

Next BBC cooking travelogue - Chalmers tours the world dressed as a dinner lady?

Also - what's cocking lager?

BLTP said...

JC drinking gin in various shabby resorts would be good